Kevin’s home was pretty normal, after all not everyone going to Jackson County highschool was rich like Shoji and Milo.
That said, the Kevin that appeared from the building to meet them was much more shocking than Robin who grew more muscular. The thin low confidence boy bulked up and has grown taller and was actually growing into his charming adult build.
Judith blushed when she saw him and Robin shook hands, “This is my family.” he said simply.
“Hello Mr Harison, I’m Kevin Harper. I have to thank you. Because of Robin, I could get as strong as I am and even as confident as I am.” He said.
“Please don’t, that is my son and your own effort. I had nothing to do with it.” He said.
“Want to come in?” Kevin asked.
“No, I came just to drop them off. Kids, just call when you want to come home.” He said.
They waved him off and after he left they walked in. Kevin kept looking back at Ruth and then at Kevin. “You two really are identical.” he said.
“I’ve said it already so why are you so surprised?” Robin said.
“Come on, who can say that a brother and sister are identical twins.” Kevin said.
Inside they found Kevin’s parents who were jubilant to meet Robin.
Surprisingly both of them were powerless. Even Kevin’s gamer space confirmed they had no abilities at all. This included Kevin’s older brother and two younger sisters. He was the only one with an ability in his entire family.
This was honestly just like you would see during the initial years when powers appeared. They came out extremely randomly with no sign and were very varied. Only after things calmed down once the villain age ended that people began to either marry for love or do arranged marriage between similar powers.
It was slowly getting to be seen as unethical but most people who marry like that all said the same thing, they didn’t want their children to be born with problems. That is why you have many people with similar powers marrying and it is why someone like Milo was able to be born.
True power marriages for a specific power like the Kong ability were far less welcome because it was truly breeding an ability with high power. Other similar cases are people aiming to marry a power that would counter the weakness of the main power.
It is honestly surprising how such attempts ended in many unbalanced proportions or simply one pair missing.
The family, despite being powerless, wasn’t that weak and it was obvious why. The last 2 months Kevin had worked diligently. He fully constructed the status system, stat, skill, traits and was now in the process of building the framework of some other systems but the entire status system was activated. Kevin had explained the next one to Robin. It was called the learning system.
This would allow ‘skill books’ to be learned. What were skill books, well the notes he obtained from Server Admin was a skill book. Server Admin innately has this and has used it to allow strong people to make books that contain knowledge about things that can teach to others. It should be said that he had every energy he used activated and with training his body had begun to produce extra natural energy such as chi, life force and the psychic energies.
This system worked on mana, in other words, it would gather chi and mental energy to power when required.
After that was the final framework, system shop. It was the last thing which used all forces of energy he possessed and would give him the first level game master authorization. The shop was very unique because it will produce some form of currency and through that, different kinds of services can be achieved. Among them is using the system to turn a skill someone possesses into a skill book to allow them to teach it to others.
The shop was still bare bones and supposedly only offers basic things but there are still many ‘game’ systems that you find in video games that haven’t been added or even explained. Among them is a loot system, gear shop and more.
It is likely a lot of these might be hidden in other gamers.
They had to spend some time with their family until Kevin could peel them off and bring them to his room. It was a pretty normal room and he didn’t even have a costume since he didn’t think of using one. Just like Server Admin, he didn’t feel like having it, if he required it he would likely get a helmet for the connection to the net and track things.
“Sorry about that.” he said timidly.
“No problem. I bet your family is really excited, I can tell they have all really been supporting you since they all look pretty strong for powerless.” Robin said.
“Yeah, the gamer field causes even normal people to get a slightly stronger growth. Actually it is pretty funny when we learned recently.” He said.
“What?” Robin asked.
“Those we call Powerless, their ‘class’ is NPC.” He said.
Kevin and Robin instantly started to laugh but the others were confused.
“What’s an NPC?” Jason asked.
“You know those characters built into games which generally give quests and missions?” Robin asked.
The three nodded
“Those are NPC, they are usually divided between fighter npc, who do things for missions, and civilians.” He said.
“Yep, the most interesting thing is that NPC actually have a lot of skills you can call craft skills. Like my mom has Cooking at level 23 and after using the few stats she had, her actual cooking abilities got even stronger and when I used my gamer space to identify her food, shockingly it had very minor effects like increased stamina regen, temporarily improved healing and more.” He said.
“Woah, that is actually amazing. It is like giving your family their own abilities.” he said.
“Yeah, my dad is a carpenter and today he was really happy coming home after working on some pieces because it came out so much better.” he said smiling that he could help them so much.
“That’s nice, it can really help a lot of people.” Ruth said.
“Right, sadly the quest system isn’t a framework system. It is probably going to be active later one.” He said.
“If there are quests, they would likely also be exp so maybe your powers will eventually change the physical effort growth for quest accomplishments and more.” Robin said.
“Yeah but you all came here to tap into your potential so let’s get to that.” he said and formed the gamer space orb which looked even more complex than what they had done at their peak and with actual control of it, he just spread it through the room.
They began to scan and after a moment, power started to gather around Ruth like crazy.
“Woah!” Kevin said as they saw the hundreds of nodes appearing.
“You shouldn’t be surprised, Ruth never tapped into her potential but she has always been under better guidance since middle school.” Robin said.
“Wow! A game screen appeared! It says I’m level 5 and I have 25 stats!” Judith said.
Robin made sure they didn’t mess with anything first before starting to explain how each stat worked and affected one another.
“The system says I need at least 130 constitution to fully form and change life force into Life essence.” Ruth said.
“Ah right, that only happens when people without natural energy start to activate it. We’ve noticed this several times but life force is the only one that is consistent. Only when drops of life essence naturally form will the system actively affect that aspect.” Kevin explained.
“What is your constitution?” Judith asked,
“79.” She said.
“Your dexterity is likely to be over 150 right?” Robin asked.
“156.” She replied a little confused how he knew.
Robin just sat down next to Kevin and leaned back, “I’ve been using the system much longer and I’ve kept all the information about my growth written as well as in my mind. Removing all the stats I have pumped into my body would lower my stats by almost half.” he said.
“Hey Ruth, what’s your level?” Jason asked.
“It says 42.” She said.
“How many stats do you have?” Kevin asked.
“210.”
“Hmm, so it is the normal 5 stat potential.” Kevin said.
“Huh? Potential?” she said surprised.
“Me and Kevin get 10 points per level. Kevin likely so that he can grow strong enough to properly power the gamer space while I get it because Mr Atlas’s Atlas stone produces 5 extra points.” Robin said. “However, I’m only level 30. That said, we have noticed that people with denser internal energy tend to unlock greater potential and those who activate life essence tend to increase their stat potential by a maximum of 3 points so they would get 8 points per level. It depends on the energy though but life essence is your life force itself so it tends to affect the body the hardest.” Robin explained.
She looked at the screen and clicked the constitution until it was 130 using 51 points instantly.
“How does wisdom affect the body?” She asked.
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“It increases the maximum potential of your brain, basically your brain starts multiplying and even reviving dead brain cells. At around 20 points we’ve noticed people starting to develop mental energy like Shoji.” Robin explained. “At 30 points like I have now, it starts developing minor kinetic vision.” he said and looked at her, “You should avoid adding a lot at once because we have seen wisdom weaken with time, it happened to me until I got Titan force which constantly stimulates it.” He said.
She looked for a bit before raising it to 20 and leaving it with just 10 points.
Her agility was at 90 so she raised that to 150 and her strength was 180 so she mostly balanced her body. She already used 121 points but still had a lot to go with.
She pushed constitution further to 150 before balancing all her stats to the nearest 0 raising dex to 160.
Then she raised strength to 200 with another 40 points. With 25 points left, she added that to dex because she was more flexible.
“I’m done.” She said.
Robin nodded and told her to wait as he helped their younger siblings balance their stats properly. Judith used 10 points for constitution to improve her endurance and split the remaining 15 in strength, agility and dexterity. In fact, Robin had all of them do the same since they were all level 5 thanks to the training they always did from young.
“Okay, that is done. Ruth, prepare to feel a lot of pain after this starts.” Kevin said and they all pressed to start.
Instantly Ruth fainted and collapsed like a doll cut from her strings and all those shining lights around her began to glow and gather into her body filling it with a powerful glow like a cocoon while the others were just a small glow as they got stronger. It was far from the huge stored potential that she had.
The largest store of potential they had ever seen was Mr Might after Kevin finished building the status and stat system to the level that it could generate the complete potential.
It goes without saying that he was among the people with expanded potential with 8 per level. Do remember, his level was 540 and he hadn’t really used anything because he didn’t feel like it but when the system fully gained the ability to charge all the untapped potential the 540 levels formed 4,320 stat points. The other bravemen were equally as plentiful and after some discussion they decided that it was probably to their benefit.
Of course, their stats were all crazy. Mr Might was in the ten thousands while the bravemen were nearing that benchmark so the small bit of points didn’t do much however something like wisdom can’t be directly affected, they were able to enhance that for one while enhancing their bodies by a small bit.
What was really surprising was the effect it had. Training always caused damage and they were shocked when the system used the energy to remove the tens of thousands of micro injuries they had formed from their training from top to bottom renewing their entire bodies and strength while curing any and all muscle pains and hidden damage which allowed them to exert their bodies completely.
It goes without saying that when they used all of that, their bodies were turned into miniature stars.
In the end, the ‘tiny’ upgrade had relieved them of all the injuries and damage that was impeding their true full strength and this was the true improvement.
For Ruth, they looked and were shocked to feel the heat coming off her while Robin didn’t find it strange. The changes were starting with the highest improvement in her constitution and the start of it all was the drop of life essence and it was rapidly growing.
Soon they began to hear popping and cracking.
“Her body has begun to switch out life force for life essence like it did for me.” Robin said as the popping slowly changed into cracking from her body breaking and rapidly healing and soon they began to see a faint dark toxic gas coming out from her. Kevin and Robin opened the windows to let it all out and they knew this was impurities their life force contained. Ruth didn’t have ‘defects’ per say but she had the broken part of the hardening power which happened to work well with her rubber body but it was only a part. This toxic gas was the negative energy formed surrounding it which acted as a weakening agent and very likely the code was fully incorporated into her body with it’s full effects.
Once the last of the life essence fully replaced the life force it began to make her skin, muscles and bones tougher and the life essence absorbed the excess energy going into that before the light slowly weakened and it moved onto strength as it caused her muscles to divide and grow before dexterity and agility began to weave into the mix enhancing her flexibility, and how nimble her body would become.
When everything was done the last of the energy gathered in her brain and traveled through her nerves causing dead cells to come back to life and start dividing and forming many more connections.
Soon her brain doubled in potential and pumping through her blood, life essence passed through.
Finally the changes stopped but almost at once a system voice chimed in, “Biological evolution located scanning… Life essence potential expansion. Total potential increases +3.” the voice of the system said since she was unconscious.
“Wow, she sure is your sister, even her innate potential is as high as yours.” Kevin said.
Robin didn’t say much. In fact, he was conscious that he and Ruth likely had the potential to use not only life force but psychic energy if their brains kept developing. She was likely forming mental energy like he was. Unfortunately for him, the quantity was so thin that the Titan force swept it away. Shoji had explained the hardships involved and for Robin to gain access would require him to empty his titan force to free up the mental energy and then learn to control this energy and store it inside the upper dantian.
It would definitely help stabilize his mental growth and would likely firmly expand his potential even without the stone but he couldn’t be sure and had no way to check. He was interested, it would be a lie if he wasn’t. It would make his mind stronger against mind control and it would give him better control of his mind based skills like increasing his vision speed.
Sadly, he was too focused on developing his physical strength to focus on the mental one at this stage. He has grown adapted to the stone however, he planned to channel all the Titan force into a higher density soon to be able to merge Mr Atlas’s stone again but he needed to be able to basically empty the stone.
Over Ruth, 126 more stat nodes formed while Robin sent Judith to wake her up.
Unsurprisingly, her head was pounding and she felt an uncomfortable force in her head.
She was shocked to find the extra points however and had to get some water and rest a bit before she put 31 points in each physical stat leaving 2 which she just filled her intelligence a bit not really knowing the reaction was purely knowledge base.
When enhancing that, it helped comprehension of things they already knew.
In the everything about her improved by more than double ending up like this
Status
Name:
Ruth Harrison
Class:
Trainee Hero
Stat Points
0
Level:
42
HP:
2,990
Stamina:
1,723
Strength
231
Dexterity
216
Agility
181
Intelligence
94
Constitution
181
Wisdom
20
As for Robin…
Status (Current)
Name:
Robin Harrison
Class:
Trainee Hero
Stat Points
0 (+0)
Level:
30
HP:
2,900
Stamina:
1,500
Strength
260
Dexterity
180
Agility
180
Intelligence
100
Constitution
200
Wisdom
30
When Robin revealed his next to Ruth’s they all exclaimed.
“Wow, you're both so strong!” Judith exclaimed.
Robin laughed, “Yeah but I wouldn’t even be half as strong without the rock, for real. A lot of my stats are because I carry the rock and it strains me more intensely but I would be weaker than Ruth since I might not even have Life essence without Titan force.” he said his honest thoughts.
“My head hurts and feels strange… and the life force is making my body tingle.” She said sitting on the ground while cradling her head.
“Yeah, I felt the same until I further enhanced my wisdom a bit. You’ll get used to these energies.” he said simply out of courtesy.
“Do you know how to control them?” she asked.
“Yeah…” he said but he wasn’t going to reveal it.
She could tell instantly from his tone and sighed. Kevin smiled weakly before going to a shelf and took out a book and handed it to her. “Here are notes I learned from Mr Might on energy manipulation once I developed excess energy that the Gamer System didn’t limit from my direct control. I’ve got almost all natural energies developing and I’ve properly stored the excess in proper locations so you can figure this out. For mental energy, you might find it hard since it needs a lot to break the barrier around it’s storage space.” He said.
She thanked him and began to read and began to try and manipulate but Robin grinned at this because what happened next was funny.
Ruth began to control her arm instead of the energy and felt the very conflicting feeling between them. That said, her mental energy was stimulated by this effect but it didn’t move as she wanted.
“I can’t move it separately!” she said.
Robin chuckled and just watched because he had to learn the hard way how to keep his body still so that he could control these forces. It had been the one time he had fully pushed all his Titan force from his body and kept the stone from refilling him and he had to learn how to control his energies.
Mental energy at the time wasn’t that large and he wasn’t able to break the barrier even after a week so despite with 30 points of wisdom, he didn’t continue for the time begin but as he showed when he explained his life essence, he naturally had control of his life essence but the potency of his power with it was probably a tenth that of titan force.
If he did a normal straight punch, he could flip a car, with life essence, he could probably add 50 to 70% of his raw strength and might send the car skidding across the street. With Titan force, he could punch it and send it flying across the street and through several walls.
Titan force, when used on his entire body to deal a massive attack, amplified his strength by close to 5 times while Life essence barely reached twice it and it was hard to do that. It is much safer to use Life essence however because it doesn’t explode into enemies but is able to penetrate defenses more easily.
Beat Springs had beaten up the metal arm guy in this fashion actually.
“You shouldn’t focus much on mental power, I’ve got 30 wisdom and when I spent time learning to control these natural forces in my body I only got Life essence properly while mental power was too weak to even store properly. Your wisdom is lower than mine so it isn’t going to help.” He said.
She groaned before searching about life essence and tried to figure out how that worked but their siblings actually saw his grin of glee as she was reading and they just watched until she put it down and began trying and that was when Robin’s grin widened.
The next moment Ruth’s body began to move like a loose gello as she ‘thought’ she would control until her body collapsed to the ground and she looked up at Robin and gathered herself up and pointed at him, “You knew that would happen!” She shouted.
“Of course, I went through the same thing until I could separate elastic control from Life force control. It is quite hard to achieve if I do say so myself. I didn’t do any sort of training for an entire week just to be able to finally take control of even just a drop to which I began to learn to control it and do like my Titan force and cultivate it better.” He said.
“How am I supposed to even figure that out?! You have internal power with that Titan force but I never had any of that!” she said.
“Don’t worry, if you are creative you can do a few things that will affect it. The only hint I will give you is that it involves your blood.” he said with a smile before turning to Kevin, “Got any video games?” he asked.
“Sure.” he said and brought out a four player with screen glasses which changes the screen of the video game to that of only the player's view so they don’t cheat by looking at their opponents.
She growled in annoyance while the boys cheered about playing.
Soon Kevin’s siblings came in and they began having a competition forcing Ruth, who wanted some form of control, to go to the living room while Kevin had long turned off the gamer space.
After a bit, Judith came out of the room which the boys had basically infested and found Ruth with Kevin’s sisters reading his notebook with great curiosity so after some thoughts of wanting to spend time with her sister, something she can’t do since she basically lives at her school, she went over and squeezed her way into the group.